Visual Anthropology | MUSEUM FATIGUE

Keeping Class Real This Semester (and Perhaps Next Fall): Lessons From My Visual Anthropology Class

May 15, 2020 by Museum Fatigue

Yesterday afternoon, during my last session for this semester’s Visual Anthropology class, we had a summary conversation about the students’ experiences in our fractured pandemic semester. The students shared some interesting reflections on time and life and our class that were clearly divided into a before and after. Some of these comments offer valuable ideas for a possible Fall semester that is increasingly looking like it might be spent at least partially online. “Class Isn’t Real” Students at my small […]

Categories: Anthropology, Visual Anthropology, Visual Anthropology Class • Tags: Hamline University, Hamline University Anthropology Department, Midway Conversations, online teaching, remote teaching, Visual Anthropology Class

Midway Conversations 2016: Neighborhood Documentary Projects Premiere

May 16, 2016 by Museum Fatigue

Last night at the Turf Club the Spring 2016 Visual Anthropology Class screened a selection of the work they have been doing with their neighborhood partners this semester. As with previous years the work they shared illustrated the special relationship that many of them have developed with neighbors in the Hamline Midway. The neighbors shared stores, took them into their homes, introduced them to friends and family and demonstrated why our neighborhood is such a special place to live. This […]

Categories: Anthropology, Assignments, Visual Anthropology, Visual Anthropology Class • Tags: Hamline Midway, Hamline University, Hamline University Anthropology Department, Hamline-Midway Neighborhood, Midway Conversations, neighborhood, neighborhood research

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Midway Conversations 2015: Neighborhood Documentary Projects Premiere

May 19, 2015 by Museum Fatigue

“We aren’t training to be filmmakers, but use our cameras to learn. Our neighbors have taught us so much.” This past Sunday afternoon our Visual Anthropology class hosted its fourth annual public screening and “thank you” party for our neighborhood—The Hamline Midway. While in previous years we had an early evening slot, this year the only time available was a late weekend afternoon. Despite this, however, we were very pleased to see nearly one hundred people in attendance. We ate […]

Categories: Anthropology, Assignments, Documentary, Visual Anthropology, Visual Anthropology Class • Tags: Hamline Midway, Hamline University, Hamline University Anthropology Department, Hamline-Midway Neighborhood, Midway Conversations, neighborhood, neighborhood research

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Mobile Visual Ethnography Kit

February 18, 2015 by Museum Fatigue

Last year I posted a bit about the simple, mobile equipment that I have put together for the students in my visual anthropology class to use on their visual documentary projects. This year I have made a few updates that are worth a quick share. I’m still committed to using Zoom H1s for audio capture—there really isn’t a better recorder for the price—and I’m a big fan of the tripod/case accessory package that is available for the Zoom H1 on […]

Categories: Anthropology, Fieldwork, Gear, How To, Visual Anthropology • Tags: Canon VIXIA HF R500, FurryHead Windscreens, mobile equipment, visual ethnography, Zoom H1

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Midway Conversations 2014: Neighborhood Documentary Projects Premiere

May 21, 2014 by Museum Fatigue

On May 20th from 5:30-7:30pm at a local neighborhood venue, the Turf Club, this spring’s Visual Anthropology class premiered their final mini-documentary projects to a packed house of 100-120 people. This was the second such public event (the first was written about here) and the first to actually be pulled off during finals week at the end of the semester. Together the students, their collaborators and other interested neighbors, friends and family came together to enjoy the documentaries along with bags […]

Categories: Anthropology, Assignments, Documentary, Visual Anthropology, Visual Anthropology Class • Tags: Hamline Midway, Hamline University, Hamline-Midway Neighborhood, Midway Conversations, neighborhood, neighborhood research

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HU Visual Anthropology Class in the Local Newspaper

March 14, 2014 by Museum Fatigue

I was really excited an proud to see that this semester’s Visual Anthropology class got a writeup in this past Monday’s local newspaper. Mila Koumpilova, an education reporter at the Pioneer Press, visited our class the week before, sat through some student projects, interviewed students and then went to observe a filming session with a student and neighbor. Her article, “Film anthropology class bridges gap between Hamline U and neighborhood,” does a great job summarizing the history, goals and pedagogy of the class in a […]

Categories: Anthropology, Teaching, Visual Anthropology, Visual Anthropology Class • Tags: Hamline University, Hamline-Midway Neighborhood, neighborhood, news, Robert Flaherty, Saint Paul Pioneer Press, student projects, Visual Anthropology Class

(Simple) Mobile Visual Ethnography Equipment

March 13, 2014 by Museum Fatigue

I’m often telling folks that the goal of my visual anthropology class is not to make filmmakers, but to use basic equipment to have my students make films together with others… For the past few years, students in my class have been working with local volunteers from our university neighborhood—The Hamline Midway—to make simple films together. During the first half of the semester they get to know one another, and the students get to learn the equipment, by making a […]

Categories: Anthropology, Fieldwork, Gear, How To, Visual Anthropology • Tags: FlipCam, FurryHead Windscreens, iPhone, visual ethnography, Zoom H1

What Weibo Wipes: A Collection of Censored Images

November 17, 2013 by Museum Fatigue

Sometime this last week a colleague shared a link to a very interesting collection of images erased from the Weibo microblogging website (“China’s Twitter”). The collection is being made by ProPublica and also includes some very interesting related articles about online censorship in China, such as “How to Get Censored on China’s Twitter.” I saved the link and didn’t really get a chance to look through it until last night. What an interesting collection it is—and most of the images have basic […]

Categories: China, Internet, Scripts, Surveillance, Visual Anthropology • Tags: censorship, censorship in China, ProPublica, social web, Weibo

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Some Mao Era Ethnographic Films

March 3, 2013 by Museum Fatigue

Clearly massive hard drives are becoming like attics—places where forgotten things wait to be rediscovered. Yesterday while talking with a friend about the Oroqen people in China, I vaguely remembered that six or seven years ago a visual anthropologist in China had shared with me an old Communist-era ethnological film about them. I had saved it on my laptop, and then when I returned home I transferred it to my desktop. Two computer swaps later I wasn’t even sure it […]

Categories: China, Documentary, Visual Anthropology • Tags: 纳西族, ethnology, 鄂伦春族, media, naxi, Oroqen

The Mona Lisa: Art in the Age of Digital Consumption

August 3, 2012 by Museum Fatigue

The Mona Lisa is undoubtedly one of the most recognizable images in the world. Perhaps second only to the Eiffel Tower, it is an icon of the tourist experience of Paris. So, when we arrived at the Louvre with thousands of other tourists, of course, the first thing we did was go to see it. I have heard that often when tourists first see the Mona Lisa hanging in the Louvre, the portrait is much smaller than they expect. The idea, […]

Categories: Museums, Random Reflections, Tourism, Video clips, Visual Anthropology • Tags: art, Mona Lisa, Photography, Pierre Bourdieu, tourism, visual anthropology, Walter Benjamin